The Party discussion and the factional struggle,
which is of a type that occurs before a congress—before and
in connection with the impending elections to the Tenth Congress
of the R.C.P.—are waxing hot. The first factional
pronouncement, namely, the one made by Comrade Trotsky on behalf
of “a number of responsible workers” in his
“platform pamphlet” (The Role and Tasks of the
Trade Unions, with a preface dated December 25, 1920), was
followed by a sharp pronouncement (the reader will see from what
follows that it was deservedly sharp) by the Petrograd
organisation of the R.C.P. (“Appeal to the Party”,
published in Petrogradskaya Pravda [2] on
January 6, 1921, and in the Party’s Central Organ, the
Moscow Pravda, on January 13, 1921). The Moscow Committee
then came out against the Petrograd organisation (in the same
issue of Pravda ). Then appeared a verbatim report,
published by the bureau of the R.C.P. group of the All-Russia
Central Council of Trade Unions, of the discussion that took place
on December 30, 1920, at a very large and important Party meeting,
namely, that of the R.C.P. group at the Eighth Congress of
Soviets. It is entitled The Role of the Trade Unions in
Production (with a preface dated January 6, 1921). This, of
course, is by no means all of the discussion material. Party
meetings to discuss these issues are being held almost
everywhere. On December 30, 1920, I spoke at a meeting in
conditions in which, as I put it then, I “departed from the
rules of procedure”, i.e., in conditions in which I could
not take part in the discussion or hear the preceding and
subsequent speakers. I shall now try to make amends and express
myself in a more “orderly” fashion.

The Danger Of Factional
Pronouncements To The Party

Is Comrade Trotsky’s pamphlet The Role and Tasks of
the Trade Unions a factional pronouncement? Irrespective of
its content, is there any danger to the Party in a pronouncement
of this kind? Attempts to hush up this question are a particularly
favourite exercise with the members of the Moscow Committee (with
the exception of Comrade Trotsky, of course), who see the
factionalism of the Petrograd comrades, and with Comrade Bukharin,
who, however, felt obliged, on December 30, 1920, to make the
following statement on behalf of the “buffer
group”:

“. . . when a train seems to be heading
for a crash, a buffer is not a bad thing at all” (report of
the December 30,1920 discussion, p. 45).

So there is some danger of a crash. Can we conceive of
intelligent members of the Party being indifferent to the question
of how, where and when this danger arose?

Trotsky’s pamphlet opens with the statement that
“it is the fruit of collective work”, that “a
number of responsible workers, particularly trade unionists
(members of the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Council of
Trade Unions, the Central Committee of the Metalworkers’
Union, Tsektran and others)” took part in compiling it, and
that it is a “platform pamphlet”. At the end of thesis
4 we read that “the forthcoming Party Congress will have to
choose [Trotsky’s italics] between the two trends
within the trade union movement”.

If this is not the formation of a faction by a member of the
Central Committee, if this does not mean “heading for a
crash”, then let Comrade Bukharin, or anyone of his
fellow-thinkers, explain to the Party any other possible meaning
of the words “factionalism “, and the Party
“seems to be heading for a crash”. Who can be more
purblind than men wishing to play the “buffer” and
closing their eyes to such a “danger of a
crash”?

Just imagine: after the Central Committee had spent two plenary
meetings (November 9 and December 7) in an unprecedentedly long,
detailed and heated discussion of Comrade Trotsky’s original
draft theses and of the entire trade union policy that he
advocates for the Party, one member of the Central Committee,
one out of nineteen, forms a group outside the Central
Committee and presents its “collective work” as a
“platform”, inviting the Party Congress “to
choose between two trends”! This, incidentally,
quite apart from the fact that Comrade Trotsky’s
announcement of two and only two trends on December 25, 1920,
despite Bukharin’s coming out as a “buffer” on
November 9, is a glaring exposure of the Bukharin group’s
true role as abettors of the worst and most harmful sort of
factionalism. But I ask any Party member: Don’t you find
this attack and insistence upon’choosing” between two
trends in the trade union movement rather sudden? What is there
for us to do but stare in astonishment at the fact that after
three years of the proletarian dictatorship even one Party member
can be found to “attack” the two trends issue in
this way ?

Nor is that all. Look at the factional attacks in which this
pamphlet abounds. In the very first thesis we find a threatening
“gesture” at “certain workers in the trade union
movement” who are thrown “back to trade-unionism, pure
and simple, which the Party repudiated in principle long ago
“ (evidently the Party is represented by only one member of
the Central Committee’s nineteen). Thesis 8 grandiloquently
condemns “the craft conservatism prevalent among the top
trade union functionaries” (note the truly bureaucratic
concentration of attention on the “top”!). Thesis 11
opens with the astonishingly tactful, conclusive and business-like
(what is the most polite word for it?) “hint” that the
“majority of the trade unionists . . . give only formal,
that is, verbal, recognition” to the resolutions of
the Party’s Ninth Congress.

We find that we have some very authoritative judges before us
who say the majority (!) of the trade unionists give only
verbal recognition to the Party’s decisions.

Thesis 12 reads:

“. . . many trade unionists take an ever
more aggressive and uncompromising stand against the prospect
of’coalescence’. . . . Among them we find Comrades
Tomsky and Lozovsky.

“What is more, many trade unionists,
balking at the new tasks, and methods, tend to cultivate in their
midst a spirit of corporative exclusiveness and hostility for the
new men who are being drawn into the given branch of the economy,
thereby actually fostering the survivals of craft-unionism among
the organised workers.”

Let the reader go over these arguments carefully and ponder
them. They simply abound in “gems”. Firstly, the
pronouncement must be assessed from the standpoint of
factionalism! Imagine what Trotsky would have said, and how he
would have said it, if Tomsky had published a platform accusing
Trotsky and “many” military workers of cultivating the
spirit of bureaucracy, fostering the survivals of savagery,
etc. What is the “role” of Bukharin, Preobrazhensky,
Serebryakov and the others who fail to see—positively fail
to note, utterly fail to note—the aggressiveness and
factionalism of all this, and refuse to see how much more
factional it is than the pronouncement of the Petrograd
comrades?

Secondly, take a closer look at the approach to the subject:
many trade unionists “tend to cultivate in their midst a
spirit”. . . . This is an out-and-out bureaucratic
approach. The whole point, you see, is not the level of
development and living conditions of the masses in their millions,
but the “spirit” which Tomsky and Lozovsky tend to
cultivate “in their midst”.

Thirdly, Comrade Trotsky has unwittingly revealed the
essence of the whole controversy which he and the
Bukharin and Co. “buffer” have been evading and
camouflaging with such care.

What is the point at issue? Is it the fact that many trade
unionists are balking at the new tasks and methods and tend to
cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new
officials?

Or is it that the masses of organised workers are legitimately
protesting and inevitably showing readiness to throw out the new
officials who refuse to rectify the useless and harmful excesses
of bureaucracy?

Is it that someone has refused to understand the “new
tasks and methods”?

Or is it that someone is making a clumsy attempt to cover up
his defence of certain useless and harmful excesses of bureaucracy
with a lot of talk about new tasks and methods?

It is this essence of the dispute that the reader
should bear in mind.

Formal Democracy and the Revolutionary
Interest

“Workers’ democracy is free from fetishes”,
Comrade Trotsky writes in his theses, which are the “fruit
of collective work”. “Its sole consideration is the
revolutionary interest” (thesis 23).

Comrade Trotsky’s theses have landed him in a mess. That
part of them which is correct is not new and, what is more, turns
against him. That which is new is all wrong.

I have written out Comrade Trotsky’s correct
propositions. They turn against him not only on the point in
thesis 23 (Glavpolitput) but on the others as well.

Under the rules of formal democracy, Trotsky had a
right to come out with a factional platform even against the
whole of the Central Committee. That is indisputable. What is also
indisputable is that the Central Committee had endorsed this
formal right by its decision on freedom of discussion adopted on
December 24, 1920. Bukharin, the buffer, recognises this formal
right for Trotsky, but not for the Petrograd organisation,
probably because on December 30, 1920, he talked himself into
“the sacred slogan of workers’ democracy”
(verbatim report, p. 45). . . .

Well, and what about the revolutionary interest?

Will any serious-minded person who is not blinded by the
factional egotism of Tsektran” or of the
“buffer” faction, will anyone in his right mind say
that such a pronouncement on the trade union issue by
such a prominent leader as Trotsky does promote the
revolutionary interest ?

Can it be denied that, even if Trotsky’s “new tasks
and methods” were as sound as they are in fact unsound (of
which later), his very approach would be damaging to himself, the
Party, the trade union movement, the training of millions of trade
union members and the Republic?

It looks as if the kind Bukharin and his group call them selves
a “buffer” because they have firmly decided not to
think about the obligations this title imposes upon
them.

The Political Danger Of Splits In The Trade Union
Movement

Everyone knows that big disagreements sometimes grow out of
minute differences, which may at first appear to be altogether
insignificant. A slight cut or scratch, of the kind everyone has
had scores of in the course of his life, may become very dangerous
and even fatal if it festers and if blood
poisoning sets in. This may happen in any kind of conflict, even a
purely personal one. This also happens in politics.

Any difference, even an insignificant one, may become
politically dangerous if it has a chance to grow into a split, and
I mean the kind of split that will shake and destroy the whole
political edifice, or lead, to use Comrade Bukharin’s
simile, to a crash.

Clearly, in a country under the dictatorship of the
proletariat, a split in the ranks of the proletariat, or between
the proletarian party and the mass of the proletariat, is not just
dangerous; it is extremely dangerous, especially when the
proletariat constitutes a small minority of the population. And
splits in the trade union movement (which, as I tried hard to
emphasise in my speech on December 30, 1920, is a movement of the
almost completely organised proletariat) mean precisely splits in
the mass of the proletariat.

That is why, when the whole thing started at the Fifth
All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions on November 2-6, 1920 (and
that is exactly where it did start), and when right after the
Conference—no, I am mistaken, during that
Conference—Comrade Tomsky appeared before the Political
Bureau in high dudgeon and, fully supported by Comrade Rudzutak,
the most even-tempered of men, began to relate that at the
Conference Comrade Trotsky had talked about “shaking
up” the trade unions and that he, Tomsky, had opposed
this—when that happened, I decided there and then that
policy (i.e., the Party’s trade union policy) lay at the
root of the controversy, and that Comrade Trotsky, with his
“shake-up” policy against Comrade Tomsky, was entirely
in the wrong. For, even if the “shake-up ”
policy were partly justified by the “new tasks and
methods” (Trotsky’s thesis 12), it cannot be tolerated
at the present time, and in the present situation, because it
threatens a split.

It now seems to Comrade Trotsky that it is “an utter
travesty “ to ascribe the “shake-up-from-above “
policy to him (L. Trotsky, “A Reply to the Petrograd
Comrades”, Pravda No. 9, January 15, 1921). But
“shake-up” is a real “catchword”, not only
in the sense that after being uttered by Comrade Trotsky at the
Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions it has, you might say,
“caught on” throughout the Party and the trade
unions. Unfortunately, it remains true even today in the much more
profound sense that it alone epitomises the whole spirit,
the whole trend of the platform pamphlet entitled The
Role and Tactics of the Trade Unions. Comrade Trotsky’s
platform pamphlet is shot through with the spirit of the
“shake-up-from-above” policy. Just recall the
accusation made against Comrade Tomsky, or “many trade
unionists”, that they “tend to cultivate in their
midst a spirit of hostility for the new men”!

But whereas the Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions
(November 2-6, 1920) only saw the makings of the atmosphere
fraught with splits, the split within Tsektran became a fact in
early December 1920.

This event is basic and essential to an understanding of the
political essence of our controversies; and Comrades Trotsky and
Bukharin are mistaken if they think hushing it up will help
matters. A hush-up in this case does not produce a
“buffer” effect but rouses passions; for the question
has not only been placed on the agenda by developments, but has
been emphasised by Comrade Trotsky in his platform pamphlet. It is
this pamphlet that repeatedly, in the passages I have quoted,
particularly in thesis 12, raises the question of whether the
essence of the matter is that “many trade unionists tend to
cultivate in their midst a spirit of hostility for the new
men”, or that the “hostility” of the
masses is legitimate in view of certain useless and
harmful excesses of bureaucracy, for example, in Tsektran.

The issue was bluntly and properly stated by Comrade Zinoviev
in his very first speech on December 30, 1920, when he said that
it was “Comrade Trotsky’s immoderate adherents”
who had brought about a split. Perhaps that is why Comrade
Bukharin abusively described Comrade Zinoviev’s speech as
“a lot of hot air”? But every Party member who reads
the verbatim report of the December 30, 1920 discussion will see
that that is not true. He will find that it is Comrade Zinoviev
who quotes and operates with the facts, and that it is Trotsky and
Bukharin who indulge most in intellectualist verbosity minus the
facts.

When Comrade Zinoviev said, “Tsektran stands on feet of
clay and has already split into three parts”, Comrade
Sosnovsky interrupted and said:

“That is something you have encouraged
“ (verbatim report, p. 15).

Now this is a serious charge. If it were proved, there would,
of course, be no place on the Central Committee, in the R.C.P., or
in the trade unions of our Republic for those who were guilty of
encouraging a split even in one of the trade
unions. Happily, this serious charge was advanced in a thoughtless
manner by a comrade who, I regret to say, has now and again been
“carried away” by thoughtless polemics before
this. Comrade Sosnovsky has even managed to insert “a fly in
the ointment” of his otherwise excellent articles, say, on
production propaganda, and this has tended to negate all its
pluses. Some people (like Comrade Bukharin) are so happily
constituted that they are incapable of injecting venom into their
attacks even when the fight is bitterest; others, less happily
constituted, are liable to do so, and do this all too
often. Comrade Sosnovsky would do well to watch his step in this
respect, and perhaps even ask his friends to help out.

But, some will say, the charge is there, even if it has been
made in a thoughtless, unfortunate and patently
“factional” form. In a serious matter, the badly
worded truth is preferable to the hush-up.

That the matter is serious is beyond doubt, for, let me say
this again, the crux of the issue lies in this area to a
greater extent than is generally suspected. Fortunately, we are in
possession of sufficiently objective and conclusive facts to
provide an answer in substance to Comrade
Sosnovsky’s point.

First of all, there is on the same page of the verbatim report
Comrade Zinoviev’s statement denying Comrade
Sosnovsky’s allegation and making precise references to
conclusive facts. Comrade Zinoviev showed that Comrade
Trotsky’s accusation (made obviously, let me add, in an
outburst of factional zeal) was quite a different one from Comrade
Sosnovsky’s; Comrade Trotsky’s accusation was that
Comrade Zinoviev’s speech at the September All-Russia
Conference of the R.C.P. had helped to bring about or had
brought about the split. (This charge, let me say in parenthesis,
is quite untenable, if only because Zinoviev’s September
speech was approved in substance by the Central Committee and the
Party, and there has been no formal protest against it since.)

Comrade Zinoviev replied that at the Central Committee meeting
Comrade Rudzutak had used the minutes to prove that
“long before any of my [Zinoviev’sl speeches
and the All-Russia Conference the question [concerning certain
unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy in Tsektran] had
been examined in Siberia, on the Volga, in the North and in the
South”.

That is an absolutely precise and clear-cut statement of
fact. It was made by Comrade Zinoviev in his first speech before
thousands of the most responsible Party members, and his facts
were not refuted either by Comrade Trotsky, who spoke
twice later, or by Comrade Bukharin, who also spoke
later.

Secondly, the December 7, 1920 resolution of the Central
Committee’s Plenary Meeting concerning the dispute between
the Communists working in water transport and the Communist group
at the Tsektran Conference, given in the same verbatiln
report, was an even more definite and official refutation of
Comrade Sosnovsky’s charges. The part of the resolution
dealing with Tsektran says:

“In connection with the dispute between
Tsektran and the water transport workers, the Central Committee
resolves: 1) To set up a Water Transport Section within the
amalgamated Tsektran; 2) To convene a congress of railwaymen and
water transport workers in February to hold normal elections to a
new Tsektran; 3) To authorise the old Tsektran to function until
then; 4) To abolish Glavpolitvod and Glavpolitput immediately and
to transfer all their funds and resources to the trade union on
normal democratic lines.”

This shows that the water transport workers, far from being
censured, are deemed to be right in every essential. Yet
none of the C.C. members who had signed the common
platform of January 14, 1921 (except Kamenev) voted for the
resolution. (The platform referred to is the Role and Tasks of
the Trade Unions. Draft Decision of the Tenth Congress of
the R.C.P., submitted to the Central Committee by a group of
members of the Central Committee and the trade union
commission. Among those who signed it was Lozovsky, a member of
the trade union commission but not of the Central Committee. The
others were Tomsky, Kalinin, Rudzutak, Zinoviev, Stalin, Lenin,
Kamenev, Petrovsky and Artyom Sergeyev.)

This resolution was carried against the C.C. members
listed above, that is, against our group, for we would have voted
against allowing the old Tsektran to continue temporarily. Because
we were sure to win, Trotsky was forced to vote for
Bukharin’s resolution, as otherwise our resolution would
have been carried. Comrade Rykov, who had been for
Trotsky in November, took part in the trade union
commission’s examination of the dispute between Tsektran and
the water transport workers in December, and saw that the latter
were right.

To sum up: the December 7 majority in the Central Committee
consisted of Comrades Trotsky, Bukharin, Preobrazhensky,
Serebryakov and other C.C. members who are above suspicion of
being biased against Tsektran. Yet the substance of their
resolution did not censure the water transport workers but
Tsektran, which they just stopped short of dissolving there and
then. This proves Sosnovsky’s charge to be quite
groundless.

There is one other point to be dealt with, if we are to leave
no room for ambiguity. What were these “certain unwarranted
and harmful excesses of bureaucracy” to which I have
repeatedly referred? Isn’t this last charge
unsupported or exaggerated?

Once again it was Comrade Zinoviev who, in his very first
speech on December 30, 1920, provided the answer which was as
precise as one could wish. He quoted from Comrade Zoff’s
water transport circular of May 3, 1920: “Committee
treadmill abolished.”[3] Comrade Zinoviev was
quite right in saying this was a fundamental error. It exemplified
the unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy and the
“appointments system”. But he said there and then that
some appointees were “not half as experienced or as
tried” as Comrade Zoff. I have heard Comrade Zoff referred
to in the Central Committee as a most valuable worker, and this is
fully borne out by my own observations in the Council of
Defence. It has not entered anyone’s mind either to make
scapegoats of such comrades or to undermine their authority (as
Comrade Trotsky suggests, without the least justification, on page
25 of his report). Their authority is not being undermined by
those who try to correct the “appointees’”
mistakes, but by those who would defend them even when they are
wrong.

We see, therefore, that the danger of splits within the trade
union movement was not imaginary but real. And we find that the
actual disagreements really boiled down to a demand that certain
unwarranted and harmful exccesses of bureaucracy, and the
appointments system should not be justified or defended, but
corrected. That is all there is to it.

Disagreements On Principle

There being deep and basic disagreements on principle—we
may well be asked—do they not serve as vindication for the
sharpest and most factional pronouncements? Is it possible to
vindicate such a thing as a split, provided there is need to drive
home some entirely new idea?

I believe it is, provided of course the disagreements are truly
very deep and there is no other way to rectify a wrong trend in
the policy of the Party or of the working class.

But the whole point is that there are no such
disagreements. Comrade Trotsky has tried to point them out, and
failed. A tentative or conciliatory approach had been
possible—and necessary—before the publication
of his pamphlet (December 25) (“such an approach is ruled
out even in the case of disagreements and vague new tasks”);
but after its publication we had to say: Comrade Trotsky
is essentially wrong on all his new points.

This is most evident from a comparison of his theses with
Rudzutak’s which were adopted by the Fifth All Russia
Conference of Trade Unions (November 2-6). I quoted the latter in
my December 30 speech and in the January 21 issue of
Pravda. They are-fuller and more correct than
Trotsky’s, and wherever the latter differs from Rudzutak, he
is wrong.

Take this famous “industrial democracy”, which
Comrade Bukharin hastened to insert in the Central
Committee’s resolution of December 7. It would, of course,
be ridiculous to quibble about this ill-conceived brainchild
(“tricky flourishes”), if it merely occurred in an
article or speech. But, after all, it was Trotsky and Bukharin who
put themselves into the ridiculous position by insisting in
their theses on this very term, which is the one feature that
distinguishes their “platforms” from Rudzutak’s
theses adopted by the trade unions.

The term is theoretically wrong. In the final analysis, every
kind of democracy, as political superstructure in general (which
must exist until classes have been abolished and a classless
society established), serves production and is ultimately
determined by the relations of production in a given society. It
is, therefore, meaningless to single out “industrial
democracy”, for this leads to confusion, and the result is a
dummy. That is the first point.

The second is that if you look at Bukharin’s own
explanation given in the resolution of the C.C. Plenary Meeting on
December 7, which he drafted, you will find that he says:
“Accordingly, the methods of workers’ democracy must
be those of industrial democracy, which means. . . .” Note
the “which means”! The fact is that Bukharin opens his
appeal to the masses with such an outlandish term that he must
give a gloss on it. This, I think, is
undemocratic from the democratic standpoint. You must
write for the masses without using terms that require a
glossary. This is bad from the “production” standpoint
because time is wasted in explaining unnecessary
terms. “Which means,” he says, “that nomination
and seconding of candidates, elections, etc., must proceed with an
eye not only to their political staunchness, but also business
efficiency, administrative experience, leadership, and proved
concern for the working people’s material and spiritual
interests.”

The reasoning there is obviously artificial and incorrect. For
one thing, democracy is more than “nomination and seconding
of candidates, elections, etc.” Then, again, not all
elections should be held with an eye to political staunchness and
business efficiency. Comrade Trotsky notwithstanding, an
organisation of many millions must have a certain percentage of
canvassers and bureaucrats (we shall not be able to make do
without good bureaucrats for many years to come). But we do not
speak of “canvassing” or “bureaucratic”
democracy.

The third point is that it is wrong to consider only the
elected, the organisers, the administrators, etc. After all, they
constitute a minority of outstanding men. It is the mass, the rank
and file that we must consider. Rudzutak has it in simpler, more
intelligible and theoretically more correct terms (thesis 6):

“. . . it must be brought home to each
participant in production that his production tasks are
appropriate and important; that each must not only take a hand in
fulfilling his assignments, but also play an intelligent part in
correcting any technical and organisational defects in the sphere
of production.

The fourth point is that “industrial democracy” is
a term that lends itself to misinterpretation. It may be read as a
repudiation of dictatorship and individual authority. It may be
read as a suspension of ordinary democracy or a pretext for
evading it. Both readings are harmful, and cannot be avoided
without long special commentaries.

Rudzutak’s plain statement of the same ideas is more
correct and more handy. This is indirectly confirmed by
Trotsky’s parallel of “war democracy” which he
draws with his own term in an article, “Industrial
Democracy”, in Pravda of January 11, and which
fails to refute that his term is inaccurate and inconvenient (for
he side-steps the whole issue and fails to compare his theses with
Rudzutak’s). Happily, as far as I can recall, we have never
had any factional controversy over that kind of term.

Trotsky’s “production atmosphere” is even
wider of the mark, and Zinoviev had good reason to laugh at
it. This made Trotsky very angry, and he came out with this
argument: “We once had a war atmosphere. . . . We must now
have a production atmosphere and not only on the surface but deep
down in the workers’ mass. This must be as intense and
practical an interest in production as was earlier displayed in
the fronts. . . .” Well, there you are: the message must be
carried “deep down into the workers’ mass” in
the language of Rudzutak’s theses, because “production
atmosphere” will only earn you a smile or a shrug. Comrade
Trotsky’s “production atmosphere” has
essentially the same meaning as production propaganda, but such
expressions must be avoided when production propaganda is
addressed to the workers at large. The term is an example of how
not to carry it on among the masses.

Politics And Economics. Dialectics And
Eclecticism

It is strange that we should have to return to such elementary
questions, but we are unfortunately forced to do so by Trotsky and
Bukharin. They have both reproached me for “switching
“ the issue, or for taking a “political”
approach, while theirs is an “economic” one. Bukharin
even put that in his theses and tried to “rise above”
either side, as if to say that he was combining the two.

This is a glaring theoretical error. I said again in my speech
that politics is a concentrated expression of economics, because I
had earlier heard my “political” approach rebuked in a
manner which is inconsistent and inadmissible for a
Marxist. Politics must take precedence over economics. To argue
otherwise is to forget the ABC of Marxism.

Am I wrong in my political appraisal? If you think so, say it
and prove it. But you forget the ABC of Marxism when you say (or
imply) that the political approach is equivalent to the
“economic”, and that you can take “the one and
the other”.

What the political approach means, in other words, is that the
wrong attitude to the trade unions will ruin the Soviet power and
topple the dictatorship of the proletariat. (In a peasant country
like Russia, the Soviet power would surely go down in the event of
a split between the trade unions and a Party in the wrong.) This
proposition can (and must) be tested in substance, which means
looking into the rights and wrongs of the approach and taking a
decision. To say: I “appreciate” your political,
approach, “but ” it is only a political one
and we “also need an economic one”, is
tantamount to saying: I “appreciate” your point that
in taking that particular step you are liable to break your neck,
but you must also take into consideration that it is
better to be clothed and well-fed than to go naked and hungry.

Bukharin’s insistence on combining the political
and the economic approach has landed him in theoretical
eclecticism.

Trotsky and Bukharin make as though they are concerned for the
growth of production whereas we have nothing but formal democracy
in mind. This picture is wrong, because the only
formulation of the issue (which the Marxist standpoint allows
) is: without a correct political approach to the matter the
given class will be unable to stay on top, and,
consequently, will be incapable of solving its
production problem either.

Let us take a concrete example. Zinoviev says: “By
carrying things to a split within the trade unions, you are making
a political mistake. I spoke and wrote about the growth of
production back in January 1920, citing the construction of the
public baths as an example.” Trotsky replies: “What a
thing to boast of: a pamphlet with the public baths as an example
(p. 29),’and not a single word’ about the tasks of the
trade unions” (p. 22).

This is wrong. The example of the public baths is worth, you
will pardon the pun, a dozen “production atmospheres”,
with a handful of “industrial democracies” thrown
in. It tells the masses, the whole bulk of them, what the trade
unions are to do, and does this in plain and intelligible terms,
whereas all these “production atmospheres” and
“democracies” are so much murk blurring the vision of
the workers’ masses, and dimming their
understanding.

Comrade Trotsky also rebuked me for not “saying a
word” (p. 66) about “the role that has to be
played—and is being played—by the levers known as the
trade union apparatus”.

I beg to differ, Comrade Trotsky. By reading out
Rudzutak’s theses in toto and endorsing them, I made a
statement on the question that was fuller,
plainer, clearer and more correct than all your
theses, your report or co-report, and speech in reply to the
debate. I insist that bonuses in kind and disciplinary
comrades’ courts mean a great deal more to economic
development, industrial management, and wider trade union
participation in production than the absolutely abstract (and
therefore empty) talk about “industrial democracy”,
“coalescence”, etc.

Behind the effort to present the “production”
standpoint (Trotsky) or to overcome a one-sided political approach
and combine it with an economic approach (Bukharin) we find:

1)Neglect of Marxism, as expressed in the theoretically
incorrect, eclectic definition of the relation between politics
and economics;

2 )Defence or camouflage of the political mistake expressed in
the shake-up policy, which runs through the whole of
Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, and which, unless it is
admitted and corrected, leads to the collapse of the
dictatorship of the proletariat;

3)A step back in purely economic and production matters, and
the question of how to increase production; it is, in fact, a step
back from Rudzutak’s practical theses, with their
concrete, vital and urgent tasks (develop production propaganda;
learn proper distribution of bonuses in kind and correct use of
coercion through disciplinary comrades’ courts), to the
highbrow, abstract, “empty” and theoretically
incorrect general theses which ignore all that
is most practical and business-like.

That is where Zinoviev and myself, on the one hand, and Trotsky
and Bukharin, on the other, actually stand on this question of
politics and economics.

I could not help smiling, therefore, when I read Comrade
Trotsky’s objection in his speech of December 30: “In
his summing-up at the Eighth Congress of Soviets of the debate on
the situation, Comrade Lenin said we ought to have less politics
and more economics, but when he got to the trade union question he
laid emphasis on the political aspect of the matter”
(p. 65). Comrade Trotsky thought these words were “very much
to the point”. Actually, however, they reveal a terrible
confusion of ideas, a truly hopeless “ideological
confusion”. Of course, I have always said, and will continue
to say, that we need more economics and less politics, but if we
are to have this we must clearly be rid of political dangers
and political mistakes. Comrade Trotsky’s political
mistakes, aggravated by Comrade Bukharin, distract our
Party’s attention from economic tasks and
“production” work, and, unfortunately,
make us waste time on correcting them and arguing it out
with the syndicalist deviation (which leads to the collapse of the
dictatorship of the proletariat), objecting to the incorrect
approach to the trade union movement (which leads to the collapse
of the Soviet power), and debating general “theses”,
instead of having a practical and business-like
“economic” discussion as to whether it was the Saratov
millers, the Donbas miners, the Petrograd metalworkers or some
other group that had the best results in coalescing, distributing
bonuses in kind, and organising comrades’ courts, on the
basis of Rudzutak’s theses, adopted by the Fifth
All-Russia-Trade Union Conference on November 2-6.

Let us now consider what good there is in a “broad
discussion”. Once again we find political mistakes
distracting attention from economic tasks. I was against this
“broad” discussion, and I believed, and still do, that
it was a mistake—a political mistake—on Comrade
Trotsky’s part to disrupt the work of the trade union
commission, which ought to have held a business-like discussion. I
believe Bukharin’s buffer group made the political mistake
of misunderstanding the tasks of the buffer (in which case they
had once again substituted eclecticism for dialectics), for from
the “buffer” standpoint they should have vigorously
opposed any broad discussion and demanded that the matter should
be taken up by the trade union commission. Here is what came of
this.

On December 30, Bukharin went so far as to say that “we
have proclaimed the new and sacred slogan of workers’
democracy, which means that questions are no longer to be
discussed in the board-room within the corporation or at small
meetings but are to be placed before big meetings. I insist that
by taking the trade union issue before such a large meeting as
this one we are not taking a step backward but forward”
(p. 45). And this man has accused Zinoviev of spouting “hot
air” and overdoing the democracy! I say that he himself has
given us a lot of hot air and has shown some unexampled bungling;
he has completely failed to understand that formal democracy must
be subordinate to the revolutionary interest.

Trotsky is in the same boat. His charge is that “Lenin
wants at all costs to disrupt or shelve the discussion of the
matter in essence” (p. 65). He declares: “My reasons
for refusing to serve on the commission were clearly stated in the
Central Committee: until such time as I am permitted, on a par
with all other comrades, to air these questions fully in the Party
press, I do not expect any good to come of any cloistered
examination of these matters, and, consequently, of work on the
commission” (p. 69).

What is the result? Less than a month has passed since Trotsky
started his “broad discussion” on December 25, and you
will be hard put to find one responsible Party worker in a hundred
who is not fed up with the discussion and has not realised its
futility (to say no worse). For Trotsky has made the Party waste
time on a discussion of words and bad theses, and has ridiculed as
“cloistered” the business-like economic
discussion in the commission, which was to have studied and
verified practical experience and projected its lessons for
progress in real “production” work, in place
of the regress from vibrant activity to scholastic
exercises in all sorts of “production
atmospheres”.

Take this famous “coalescence”. My advice on
December 30 was that we should keep mum on this point, because we
had not studied our own practical experience, and without
that any discussion was bound to degenerate into “hot
air” and draw off the Party’s forces from
economic work. I said it was bureaucratic projecteering for
Trotsky to propose in his theses that from one-third to one-half
and from one-half to two-thirds of the economic councils should
consist of trade unionists.

For this I was upbraided by Bukharin who, I see from p. 49 of
the report, made a point of proving to me at length and in great
detail that “when people meet to discuss something, they
should not act as deaf-mutes” (sic ). Trotsky was
also angry and exclaimed:

“Will every one of you please make a note
that on this particular date Comrade Lenin described this as a
bureaucratic evil. I take the liberty to predict that within a few
months we shall have accepted for our guidance and consideration
that the All-Russia Central Council of Trade Unions and the
Supreme Economic Council, the Central Committee of the
Metalworkers’ Union and the Metals Department, etc., are to
have from one-third to one-half of their members in common”
(p. 68).

When I read that I asked Comrade Milyutin (Deputy Chairman of
the Supreme Economic Council) to let me have the available
printed reports on coalescence. I said to my self: why
not make a small start on the study of our practical experience;
it’s so dull engaging in “general Party talk”
(Bukharin’s expression, p. 47, which has every chance of
becoming a catchword like “shake-up”) to no useful
purpose, without the facts, and inventing disagreements,
definitions and “industrial democracies”.

Comrade
Milyutin sent me several books, including The Report of the
Supreme Economic Council to the Eighth All-Russia Congress of
Soviets (Moscow, 1920; preface dated December 19, 1920). On
its p. 14 is a table showing workers’ participation in
administrative bodies. Here is the table (covering only part of
the gubernia economic councils and factories):

Administrative Body

Total members

Workers

Specialists

Office workers and others

Number

Percent

Number

Percent

Number

Percent

Presidium of Supreme Economic Council and gubernia economic councils .

187

107

57.2

22

11.8

58

31.0

Collegiums of chief administrations, departments, central boards and head offices

140

72

51.4

31

22.2

37

26.4

Corporate and one-man management of factories.

1,143

726

63.5

398

34.8

19

1.7

Total

1,470

905

61.6

451

30.7

114

7.7

It will be seen that 61.6 per cent, that is, closer to
two-thirds than to one-half, of the staff of administrative bodies
now consists of workers. And this already proves that what Trotsky
wrote on this matter in his theses was an exercise in bureaucratic
projecteering. To talk, argue and write platforms about
“one-third to one-half” and “one-half to
two-thirds” is the most useless sort of “general Party
talk”, which diverts time, attention and resources from
production work. It is empty politicking. All this while,
a great deal of good could have been done in the commission, where
men of experience would have refused to write any theses without a
study of the facts, say, by polling a dozen or so “common
functionaries” (out of the thousand), by comparing their
impressions and conclusions with objective statistical data, and
by making an attempt to obtain practical guidance for the future:
that being our experience, do we go straight on, or do we make
some change in our course, methods and approach, and how; or do we
call a halt, for the good of the cause, and check things over and
over again, make a few changes here and there, and so on and so
forth.

Comrades, a real “executive” (let me also have a go
at “production propaganda”) is well aware that even in
the most advanced countries, the capitalists and their executives
take years—sometimes ten and more—to study and test
their own (and others’) practical experience, making
innumerable starts and corrections to tailor a system of
management, select senior and junior executives, etc., fit for
their particular business. That was the rule under capitalism,
which throughout the civilised world based its business practices
on the experience and habits of centuries. We who are
breaking new ground must put in a long, persistent and patient
effort to retrain men and change the old habits which have come
down to us from capitalism, but this can only be done little by
little. Trotsky’s approach is quite wrong. In his December
30 speech he exclaimed: “Do or do not our workers, Party and
trade union functionaries have any production training? Yes or no?
I say: No” (p. 29). This is a ridiculous approach. It is
like asking whether a division has enough felt boots: Yes or
no?

It is safe to say that even ten years from now we shall have to
admit that all our Party and trade union functionaries do not have
enough production training, in much the same way as the workers of
the Military Department, the trade unions and the Party will not
have had enough military experience. But we have made a
start on production training by having about a thousand
workers, and trade union members and delegates take part in
management and run factories, head offices and other bodies higher
up the scale. The basic principle underlying “production
training”—which is the training of our own
selves, of the old underground workers and professional
journalists—is that we should start a painstaking and
detailed study of our own practical experience, and teach others
to do so, according to the rule: Look before you leap. The
fundamental and absolute rule behind “production
training” is systematic, circumspect, practical and business
like verification of what this one thousand have done, and even
more efficient and careful correction of their work, taking a step
forward only when there is ample proof of the usefulness of a
given method, system of management, proportion, selection of men,
etc. And it is this rule that Comrade Trotsky has broken by his
theses and approach. All his theses, his entire platform pamphlet,
are so wrong that they have diverted the Party’s attention
and resources from practical “production” work to a
lot of empty talk.

Dialectics and Eclecticism
“School” and “Apparatus”

Among Comrade Bukharin’s many excellent traits are his
theoretical ability and keen interest in getting at the
theoretical roots of every question. That is a very valuable trait
because you cannot have a proper understanding of any mistake, let
alone a political one, unless you dig down to its theoretical
roots among the basic premises of the one who makes it.

Responding to this urge, Comrade Bukharin tended to shift the
controversy into the theoretical sphere, beginning from December
30, if not earlier.

In his speech on that day he said: “That neither the
political nor the economic factor can be ignored is, I believe,
absolutely incontrovertible—and that is the theoretical
essence of what is here known as the’buffer group’ or
its ideology “ (p. 47).

The gist of his theoretical mistake in this case is
substitution of eclecticism for the dialectical interplay of
politics and economics (which we find in Marxism). His theoretical
attitude is: “on the one hand, and on the other”,
“the one and the other”. That is
eclecticism. Dialectics requires an all-round consideration of
relationships in their concrete development but not a patchwork of
bits and pieces. I have shown this to be so on the example of
politics and economics.

That of the “buffer” has gone to reinforce the
point. You need a buffer, and it is useful when the Party train is
heading for a crash. No question about that at all. Bukharin has
built up his “buffer” problem eclectically, by
collecting odd pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. As a
“buffer”, Bukharin should have decided for himself
just where, when and how each individual or group had made their
mistake, whether it was a theoretical mistake, one of political
tact, factional pronouncement, or exaggeration, etc. He should
have done that and gone hammer and tongs at every such
mistake. But he has failed to understand his task of
“buffer”, and here is good proof of it.

The Communist group of Tsektran’s Petrograd Bureau (the
C.C. of the Railwaymen’s and Water Transport Workers’
Union), an organisation sympathising with Trotsky, has stated its
opinion that, “on the main issue of the trade unions’
role in production, Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin hold views which
are variations of one and the same standpoint”. It has
issued Comrade Bukharin’s report in Petrograd on January
3,1921, in pamphlet form (N. Bukharin, The Tasks of the Trade
Unions, Petrograd, 1921). It says:

“Comrade Trotsky’s original
formulation was that the trade union leadership should be removed
and suitable comrades found to take their place, etc. He had
earlier advocated a’shake-up’, but he has now
abandoned the idea, and it is therefore quite absurd to use it as
an argument against him” (p. 5).

I will let pass the numerous factual inaccuracies in this
statement. (Trotsky used the term “shake-up” at the
Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, November 2-6. He
mentions “selection of leadership” in Paragraph 5 of
his theses which he submitted to the Central Committee on November
8, and which, incidentally, some of his supporters have published
as a leaflet. The whole of Trotsky’s pamphlet, The Role
and Tasks of the Trade Unions, December 25, reveals the same
kind of mentality, the same spirit as I have pointed out
before. When and how he “abandoned” this attitude
remains a mystery.) I am now dealing with a different matter. When
the “buffer” is an eclectic, he passes over some
mistakes and brings up others; he says nothing of them in Moscow
on December 30, 1920, when addressing thousands of
R.C.P. functionaries from all over Russia; but he brings them up
in Petrograd on January 3, 1921. When the “buffer” is
a dialectician, he directs the full brunt of his attack at every
mistake he sees on either side, or on all sides. And that is
something Bukharin does not do. He does not even try to examine
Trotsky’s pamphlet in the light of the
“shake-up” policy. He simply says nothing about
it. No wonder his buffer performance has made everyone
laugh.

To proceed. In that same Petrograd speech he says (p. 7):

“Comrade Trotsky’s mistake is
insufficient support for the school-of-communism idea.”

During the December 30 discussion, Bukharin reasoned as
follows:

“Comrade Zinoviev has said that the trade
unions are a school of communism, and Trotsky has said that they
are a technical and administrative apparatus for industrial
management. I see no logical grounds for proof that either
proposition is wrong; both, and a combination of both, are
right” (p. 48).

Bukharin and his “group” or “faction”
make the same point in their thesis 6: “On the one hand,
they [the trade unions] are a school of communism . . . and on the
other, they are—increasingly—a component part of the
economic apparatus and of state administration in general”
(Pravda, January 16).

That is where we find Comrade Bukharin’s fundamental
theoretical mistake, which is substitution of eclecticism
(especially popular with the authors of diverse
“fashionable” and reactionary philosophical systems)
for Marxist dialectics.

When Comrade Bukharin speaks of “logical” grounds,
his whole reasoning shows that he takes—unconsciously,
perhaps—the standpoint of formal or scholastic logic, and
not of dialectical or Marxist logic. Let me explain this by taking
the simple example which Comrade Bukharin himself gives. In the
December 30 discussion he said:

“Comrades, many of you may find that the
current controversy suggests something like this: two men come in
and invite each other to define the tumbler on the lectern. One
says:‘It is a glass cylinder, and a curse on anyone who says
different.’ The other one says:‘A tumbler is a
drinking vessel, and a curse on anyone who says
different’”(p. 46).

The reader will see that Bukharin’s example was meant to
give me a popular explanation of the harm of one-track thinking. I
accept it with gratitude, and in the one-good
turn-deserves-another spirit offer a popular explanation of the
difference between dialectics and eclecticism.

A tumbler is assuredly both a glass cylinder and a drinking
vessel. But there are more than these two properties, qualities or
facets to it; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite
number of “mediacies” and inter-relationships with the
rest of the world. A tumbler is a heavy object which can be used
as a missile; it can serve as a paper weight, a receptacle for a
captive butterfly, or a valuable object with an artistic engraving
or design, and this has nothing at all to do with whether or not
it can be used for drinking, is made of glass, is cylindrical or
not quite, and so on and so forth.

Moreover, if I needed a tumbler just now for drinking, it would
not in the least matter how cylindrical it was, and whether it was
actually made of glass; what would matter though would be whether
it had any holes in the bottom, or anything that would cut my lips
when I drank, etc. But if I did not need a tumbler for drinking
but for a purpose that could be served by any glass cylinder, a
tumbler with a cracked bottom or without one at all would do just
as well, etc.

Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go,
with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal
definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops
there. When two or more different definitions are taken and
combined at random (a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel), the
result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different
facets of the object, and nothing more.

Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly,
if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at
and examine all its facets, its connections and
“mediacies”. That is something we cannot ever hope to
achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a
safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical
logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in
change, in “self-movement” (as Hegel sometimes puts
it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object
as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially
true for its purpose, use and connection with the
surrounding world. Thirdly, a full “definition” of an
object must include the whole of human experience, both as a
criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection
with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical logic holds that
“truth is always concrete, never abstract”, as the
late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel. (Let me add in
parenthesis for the benefit of young Party members that you
cannot hope to become a real, intelligent
Communist without making a study—and I mean
study—of all of Plekhanov’s philosophical
writings, because nothing better has been written on Marxism
anywhere in the world.[3b])

I have not, of course, run through the whole notion of
dialectical logic, but what I have said will do for the present. I
think we can return from the tumbler to the trade unions and
Trotsky’s platform.

“A school, on the one hand, and an apparatus on the
other”, says Bukharin, and writes as much in his
theses. Trotsky’s mistake is “insufficient support for
the school-of-communism idea”; Zinoviev errs by being
lukewarm on the apparatus “factor”.

Why is Bukharin’s reasoning no more than inert and empty
eclecticism? It is because he does not even try to make an
independent analysis, from his own standpoint, either of the whole
course of the current controversy (as Marxism, that is,
dialectical logic, unconditionally demands) or of the whole
approach to the question, the whole presentation—the whole
trend of the presentation, if you will—of the question at
the present time and in these concrete circumstances. You do not
see Bukharin doing that at all! His approach is one of pure
abstraction: he makes no attempt at concrete study, and takes bits
and pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. That is eclecticism.

Here is another example to clarify the picture. I know next to
nothing about the insurgents and revolutionaries of South China
(apart from the two or three articles by Sun Yat-sen, and a few
books and newspaper articles I read many years ago). Since there
are these uprisings, it is not too far-fetched to assume a
controversy going on between Chinese No. 1, who says that the
insurrection is the product of a most acute nation-wide class
struggle, and Chinese No. 2, who says that insurrection is an
art. That is all I need to know in order to write theses
à la Bukharin: “On the one hand, . . . on the
other hand”. The one has failed to reckon with the art
“factor”, and the other, with the “acuteness
factor”, etc. Because no concrete study is made of
this particular controversy, question, approach, etc.,
the result is a dead and empty eclecticism.

On the one hand, the trade unions are a school, and on the
other, an apparatus; but they also happen to be an organisation of
working people, an almost exclusive organisation of industrial
workers, an organisation by industry, etc.[3c]
Bukharin does not make any analysis for himself, nor does he
produce a shred of evidence to prove why it is that we should
consider the first two “facets” of the question or
object, instead of the third, the fourth, the fifth, etc. That is
why his group’s theses are an eclectic soap bubble. His
presentation of the “school-apparatus” relationship is
fundamentally eclectic and wrong.

The only way to view this question in the right light is to
descend from empty abstractions to the concrete, that is, the
present issue. Whether you take it in the form it assumed at the
Fifth All-Russia Conference of Trade Unions, or as it was
presented and slanted by Trotsky himself in his platform
pamphlet of December 25, you will find that his whole
approach is quite wrong and that he has gone off at a tangent. He
has failed to understand that the trade unions can and must be
viewed as a school both when raising the question of “Soviet
trade-unionism”, and when speaking of production propaganda
in general, and even when considering “coalescence”
and trade union participation in industrial management, as
Trotsky does. On this last point, as it is presented in
Trotsky’s platform pamphlet, the mistake lies in his failure
to grasp that the trade unions are a school of technical and
administrative management of production. In the context of
the controversy, you can not say: “a school, on the one
hand, and something else on the other"; given Trotsky’s
approach, the trade unions, whichever way you look at
them, are a school. They are a school of unity,
solidarity, management and administration, where you learn how to
protect your interests. Instead of making an effort to comprehend
and correct Comrade Trotsky’s fundamental mistake, Comrade
Bukharin has produced a funny little amendment: “On the one
hand, and on the other.”

Let us go deeper into the question. Let us see what the present
trade unions are, as an “apparatus” of industrial
management. We have seen from the incomplete returns that about
900 workers—trade union members and delegates—are
engaged in industrial management. If you multiply this number by
10 or even by 100—if it helps to clarify your fundamental
mistake let us assume this incredible speed of
“advance” in the immediate future—you still have
an insignificant proportion of those directly engaged in
management, as compared with the mass of six million
trade union members. This makes it even clearer that it is quite
wrong to look to the “leading stratum”, and talk about
the trade unions’ role in production and industrial
management, as Trotsky does, forgetting that 98.5 per cent (6
million minus 90,000 equals 5,910,000 or 98.5 per cent of the
total) are learning, and will have to continue to do
so for a long time to come. Don’t say school
and management, say schooI of management.

In his December 30 argument against Zinoviev, whom he accused,
quite groundlessly and incorrectly, of denying the
“appointments system”, that is, the Central
Committee’s right and duty to make appointments, Comrade
Trotsky inadvertently drew the following telltale comparison:

“Zinoviev tends to overdo the propaganda
angle on every practical matter, forgetting that it is not only a
source of material for agitation, but also a problem requiring an
administrative solution” (p. 27).

Before I explain in detail the potential
administrative approach to the issue, let me say that Comrade
Trotsky’s fundamental mistake is that he treats (rather,
maltreats) the questions he himself had brought up in his
platform pamphlet as administrative ones, whereas
they could be and ought to be viewed only from the
propaganda angle.

In effect, what are Trotsky’s good points? One
undoubtedly good and useful point is his production
propaganda, but that is not in his theses, but in his
speeches, specially when he forgets about his unfortunate polemics
with the allegedly “conservative” wing of the
trade-unionists. He would undoubtedly have done (and I believe he
will do) a great deal of good in the trade union
commission’s practical business, as speaker and writer, and
as a member of the All-Russia Production Propaganda Bureau. His
platform theses were a mistake, for through them, like a scarlet
thread, runs the administrative approach to the
“crisis” and the “two trends” within the
trade unions, the interpretation of the R.C.P. Programme,
“Soviet trade-unionism”, “production
training” and “coalescence”. I have listed all
the main points of Trotsky’s “platform “ and
they all happen to be topics which, considering the material at
Trotsky’s disposal, can be correctly approached at the
present time only from the propaganda angle.

The state is a sphere of coercion. It would be madness to
renounce coercion, especially in the epoch of the dictatorship of
the proletariat, so that the administrative approach and
“steerage” are indispensable. The Party is the leader,
the vanguard of the proletariat, which rules directly. It is not
coercion but expulsion from the Party that is the specific means
of influence and the means of purging and steeling the
vanguard. The trade unions are a reservoir of the state power, a
school of communism and a school of management. The specific and
cardinal thing in this sphere is not administration but
the “ties ” “between the
central state administration” (and, of course, the local as
well), “the national economy and the broad masses
of the working people” (see Party Programme, economic
section, §5, dealing with the trade unions).

The whole of Trotsky’s platform pamphlet betrays an
incorrect approach to the problem and a misunderstanding of this
relationship.

Let us assume that Trotsky had taken a different approach to
this famous question of “coalescence” in connection
with the other topics of his platform, and that his pamphlet was
entirely devoted to a detailed investigation of, say, 90 of the
900 cases of “coalescence” where trade union officials
and members concurrently held elective trade union posts and
Supreme Economic Council posts in industrial management. Let us
say these 90 cases had been analysed together with the returns of
a selective statistical survey, the reports of inspectors and
instructors of Rabkrin and the People’s Commissariats
concerned: let us say they had been analysed in the light of the
data supplied by the administrative bodies, the results of the
work, the headway in production, etc. That would have been a
correct administrative approach, and would have fullyy\ indicated
the “shake-up” line, which implies concentrating
attention on removals, transfers, appointments and the immediate
demands to be made on the “leading stratum”. When
Bukharin said in his January 3 speech, published by the Tsektran
people in Petrograd, that Trotsky had at first wanted a
“shake-up” but had now abandoned the idea, he made
another one of his eclectical mistakes, which is ridiculous from
the practical standpoint and theoretically inadmissible for a
Marxist. He takes the question in the abstract, being unable (or
unwilling) to get down to brass tacks. So long as we, the
Party’s Central Committee and the whole Party, continue to
run things, that is, govern, we shall never—we
cannot—dispense with the “shake-up”, that is,
removals, transfers, appointments, dismissals, etc. But
Trotsky’s platform pamphlet deals with something else, and
does not raise the “question of practical business” at
all. It is not this but the “trends within the
trade union movement” (Trotsky’s thesis 4, end) that
was being debated by Zinoviev and Trotsky, Bukharin and myself,
and in fact the whole Party.

This is essentially a political question. Because of the
substance of the case—this concrete, particular “case
“—it is impossible to correct Trotsky’s mistake
by means of eclectic little amendments and addenda, as Bukharin
has been trying to do, being moved undoubted]y by the most humane
sentiments and intensions.

There is only one answer.

First, there must be a correct solution of the political
question of the “trends within the trade union
movement”, the relationship between classes, between
politics and economics, the specific role of the state, the Party,
the trade unions, as “school” and apparatus, etc.

Second, once the correct political decision has been adopted, a
diversified nation-wide production propaganda campaign must be
carried through, or, rather, systematically carried forward with
persistence and patience over a long term, under the sponsorship
and direction of a state agency. It should be conducted in such a
way as to cover the same ground over and over again.

Third, the “questions of practical business” must
not be confused with trend issues which properly belong to the
sphere ofgeneral Party talk” and broad discussions; they
must be dealt with as practical matters in the working
commissions, with a hearing of witnesses and a study of memoranda,
reports and statistics. And any necessary “shake-up”
must be carried out only on that basis and in those circumstances:
only under a decision of the competent Soviet or Party organ, or
of both.

Trotsky and Bukharin have produced a hodgepodge of political
mistakes in approach, breaks in the middle of the transmission
belts, and unwarranted and futile attacks on “administrative
steerage”. It is now clear where the
“theoretical” source of the mistake lies, since
Bukharin has taken up that aspect of it with his example of the
tumbler. His theoretical—in this case, gnosiological—
mistake lies in his substitution of eclecticism for
dialectics. His eclectic approach has confused him and has landed
him in syndicalism. Trotsky’s mistake is one-track thinking,
compulsiveness, exaggeration and obstinacy. His platform says that
a tumbler is a drinking vessel, but this particular tumbler
happens to have no bottom.

Conclusion

It remains for me to go over a few more points which must be
dealt with to prevent misunderstanding.

Thesis 6 of Trotsky’s platform quotes Paragraph 5 of the
economic section of the R.C.P. Programme, which deals with the
trade unions. Two pages later, his thesis 8 says:

“Having lost the old basis of their existence, the class
economic struggle, the trade unions. . . “ (that is wrong,
and is a hasty exaggeration: the trade unions no longer have to
face the class economic struggle but the non-class
“economic struggle”, which means combating
bureaucratic distortions of the Soviet apparatus, safeguarding the
working people’s material and spiritual interests in ways
and means inaccessible to this apparatus, etc. This is a struggle
they will unfortunately have to face for many more years to
come). “The trade unions,” says Trotsky, “have,
for various reasons, not yet succeeded in mustering the necessary
forces and working out the necessary methods enabling them to
solve the new task, that of organising production ”
(Trotsky’s italics, p. 9, thesis 8), “set before them
by the proletarian revolution and formulated in our
Programme.”

That is yet another hasty exaggeration which is pregnant with
grave error. The Programme does not contain any such formulation
nor does it set the trade unions the task of “organising
production”. Let us go over the propositions in the
Party’s Programme as they unfold in the text:

(1)"The organisational apparatus” (but not the others)
“of socialised industry should rely chiefly” (but not
exclusively) “on the trade unions.” (2)"They must to
an ever increasing degree divest themselves of the narrow
craft-union spirit” (how? under the leadership of the Party
and through the proletariat’s educational and other
influence on the non-proletarian mass of working people)
“and become large industrial associations, embracing the
majority, and eventually all of the workers in the given
industry.”

That is the first part of the section of the Party Programme
dealing with the trade unions. You will have noted that it starts
by laying down very “strict conditions”
demanding a long sustained effort for what is to follow. And what
follows is this:

“The trade unions being, on the strength of the laws of
the Soviet Republic and established practice, participants”
(note the cautious statement: participants only) “in all the
local and central organs of industrial management, should
eventually arrive at a de facto concentration in their
hands of the whole administration of the whole national economy,
as a single economic entity” (note this: should arrive at a
de facto concentration of management not of branches of
industry and not of industry as a whole, but of the whole national
economy, and moreover, as an economic entity. In economic terms,
this condition may be considered fulfilled only when the petty
producers both in industry and agriculture account for less than
one-half of the population and the national economy). “The
trade unions ensuring in this way” (the way which helps to
realise all the conditions listed earlier) “indissoluble
ties between the central state administration, the national
economy and the broad masses of working people, should draw the
latter” (that is, the masses, the majority of the
population) “into direct economic management on the widest
possible scale. At the same time, the participation of the trade
unions in economic management and their activity in drawing the
broad masses into this work are the principal means of combating
the bureaucratisation of the economic apparatus of the Soviet
power and making possible the establishment of truly popular
control over the results of production.”

There again, in that last sentence, we find a very cautious
phrase: “participation in economic management"; and another
reference to the recruitment of the broad masses as the chief (but
not the only) means of combating bureaucratic practices; finally,
we find a highly cautious statement: “making possible
” the establishment of “popular
”—that is, workers’ and peasants’,
and not just purely proletarian—“control
”.

It is obviously wrong to boil this down to the Party Programme
“formulating” the trade unions’ task as
“organisation of production”. And if you insist on
this error, and write it into your platform theses, you will get
nothing but an anti-communist, syndicalist deviation.

Incidentally, Comrade Trotsky says in his theses that
“over the last period we have not made any headway towards
the goal set forth in the Programme but have in fact retreated
from it” (p. 7, thesis 6). That statement is unsupported,
and, I think, wrong. It is no proof to say, as Trotsky did in the
discussions, that the trade unions “themselves” admit
this. That is not the last resort, as far as the Party is
concerned, and, generally speaking, the proof lies only in a
serious and objective study of a great number of facts. Moreover,
even if such proof were forthcoming, there would remain this
question: Why have we retreated? Is it because “many
trade-unionists “ are “balking at the new tasks and
methods”, as Trotsky believes, or because “we have not
yet succeeded in mustering the necessary forces and working out
the necessary methods” to cut short and correct certain
unwarranted and harmful excesses of bureaucracy?

Which brings me to Bukharin’s rebuke of December 30
(repeated by Trotsky yesterday, January 24, during our discussion
in the Communist group of the Second Miners’ Congress) that
we have “dropped the line laid down by the Ninth Party
Congress” (p. 46 of the report on the December 30
discussion). He alleged that at that Congress I had defended the
militarisation of labour and had jeered at references to
democracy, all of which I now “repudiate”. In his
reply to the debate on December 30, Comrade Trotsky added this
barb: “Lenin takes account of the fact that . . . there is a
grouping of opposition-minded comrades within the trade
unions” (p. 65); that I view it from the “diplomatic
angle” (p. 69), and that there is “manoeuvring inside
the Party groups” (p. 70), etc. Putting such a complexion on
the case is, of course, highly flattering for Trotsky, and worse
than unflattering for me. But let us look at the facts.

In that same discussion on December 30, Trotsky and Krestinsky
established the fact that “as long ago as July (1920),
Comrade Preobrazhensky had proposed to the Central Committee that
we should switch to a new track in respect of the internal life of
our workers’ organisations” (p. 25). In August,
Comrade Zinoviev drafted a letter, and the Central Committee
approved a C.C. Letter on combating red-tape and
extending democracy. In September, the question was brought up at
a Party conference whose decisions were endorsed by the Central
Committee. In December, the question of combating red-tape was
laid before the Eighth Congress of Soviets. Consequently, the
whole Central Committee, the whole Party and the whole
workers’ and peasants’ Republic had recognised that
the question of the bureaucracy and ways of combating its evils
was high on the agenda. Does any “repudiation” of the
Ninth Congress of the R.C.P. follow from all this? Of course,
not. The decisions on the militarisation of labour, etc., are
incontestable, and there is no need for me at all to withdraw any
of my jibes at the references to democracy by those who challenged
these decisions. What does follow is that we shall be extending
democracy in the workers’ organisations, without turning it
into a fetish; that we shall redouble our attention to the
struggle against bureaucratic practices; and that we shall take
special care to rectify any unwarranted and harmful excesses of
bureaucracy, no matter who points them out.

One final remark on the minor question of priority and
equalisation. I said during the December 30 discussion that
Trotsky’s formulation of thesis 41 on this point was
theoretically wrong, because it implied priority in production and
equalisation in consumption. I replied that priority implied
preference and that that was nothing unless you also had it in
consumption. Comrade Trotsky reproached me for
“extraordinary forgetfulness” and
“intimidation” (pp. 67 and 68), and I am surprised to
find that he has not accused me also of manoeuvring, diplomatic
moves, etc. He has made “concessions” to my
equalitarian line, but I have attacked him.

Actually, however, anyone who takes an interest in Party
affairs, can turn to indisputable Party documents: the November
resolution of the C.C. Plenum, point 4, and Trotsky’s
platform pamphlet, thesis 41. However “forgetful” I
may be, and however excellent Comrade Trotsky’s memory, it
is still a fact that thesis 41 contains a theoretical error, which
the C.C. resolution of November 9 does not. The resolution says:
“While recognising the necessity of keeping to the principle
of priority in carrying out the economic plan, the Central
Committee, in complete solidarity with the decisions of the last
All-Russia Conference (September), deems it necessary to effect a
gradual but steady transition to equality in the status of various
groups of workers and their respective trade unions, all the while
building up the organisation on the scale of the union as a
whole.” That is clearly aimed against Tsektran, and it is
quite impossible to put any other construction on the exact
meaning of the resolution. Priority is here to stay. Preference is
still to be given to enterprises, trade unions, trusts and
departments on the priority list (in regard to fulfilment of the
economic plan), but at the same time, the “equalitarian
line”—which was supported not by “Comrade Lenin
alone”, but was approved by the Party Conference and the
Central Committee, that is, the entire Party—makes this
clear-cut demand: get on with the gradual but steady
transition to equalisation. That Tsektran failed to carry
out this C.C. resolution (November) is evident from the Central
Committee’s December resolution (on Trotsky and
Bukharin’s motion), which contains another reminder of the
“principles of ordinary democracy”. The theoretical
error in thesis 41 is that it says: equalisation in consumption,
priority in production. That is an economic absurdity because it
implies a gap between production and consumption. I did not
say—and could never have said—anything of the sort. If
you don’t need a factory, close it down. Close down all the
factories that are not absolutely essential, and give preference
to those that are. Give preference to, say, transport. Most
certainly. But the preference must not be overdone, as it was in
Tsektran’s case, which was why the Party (and not
just Lenin) issued this directive: get on with the
gradual but steady transition to equality.
And Trotsky has no one but himself to blame for having come
out—after the November Plenary Meeting, which gave a
clear-cut and theoretically correct solution—with a
factional pamphlet on “the two trends” and proposed a
formulation in his thesis 41 which is wrong in economic
terms.

* *

*

Today, January 25, it is exactly one month since Comrade
Trotsky’s factional statement. It is now patent that this
pronouncement, inappropriate in form and wrong in essence, has
diverted the Party from its practical economic and production
effort into rectifying political and theoretical mistakes. But,
it’s an ill wind, as the old saying goes.

Rumour has it that some terrible things have been said about
the disagreements on the Central Committee. Mensheviks and
Socialist-Revolutionaries undoubtedly shelter (and have sheltered)
behind the opposition, and it is they who are spreading the
rumours, incredibly malicious formulations, and inventions of all
sorts to malign the Party, put vile interpretations on its
decisions, aggravate conflicts and ruin its work. That is a
political trick used by the bourgeoisie, including the
petty-bourgeois democrats, the Mensheviks and the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who, for very obvious reasons,
hate—and cannot help hating—the Bolsheviks’
guts. Every intelligent member of the Party is familiar with this
political trick, and knows its worth.

Because of the disagreements on the Central Committee, it had
to appeal to the Party, and the discussions that followed clearly
revealed the essence and scope of these disagreements. That killed
the rumours and the slander. The Party learns its lessons and is
tempered in the struggle against factionalism, a new malaise (it
is new in the sense that after the October Revolution we had
forgotten all about it). Actually, it is an old malaise, with
relapses apparently bound to occur over the next few years, but
with an easier cure now well in sight.

The Party is learning not to blow up its disagreements. Let me
quote at this point Comrade Trotsky’s correct remark about
Comrade Tomsky: “I have always said —even when the
polemic against Comrade Tomsky was at its bitterest—that it
is quite clear to me that only men with his experience and
authority ought to be our trade union leaders. I told this to the
Party group of the Fifth Conference of the Trade Unions, and
repeated it at the Zimin theatre a few days ago. Ideological
struggle within the Party does not mean mutual ostracism but
mutual influence”[4] (p. 34 of the report on the December
30 discussion). The Party will naturally apply this correct
approach to Comrade Trotsky himself.

During the discussion it was Comrade Shlyapnikov and his group,
the so-called Workers’ Opposition, who showed the most
pronounced syndicalist trend. This being an obvious deviation from
communism and the Party, we shall have to reckon with it, talk it
over, and make a special propaganda effort to explain the error of
these views and the danger of making such mistakes. Comrade
Bukharin, who actually coined the syndicalist phrase
“mandatory nominations” (by trade unions to management
bodies) tries to vindicate himself in today’s issue of
Pravda, but I’m afraid his line of defence is
highly ineffective and quite wrong. He wants us to know, you see,
that he deals with the role of the Party in his other points. I
should think so! If it were otherwise it would have been more than
just a mistake, requiring correction and allowing some
slight rectification: it would have been withdrawal from the
Party. When you say “mandatory nominations” but
neglect to add, there and then, that they are not
mandatory for the Party, you have a syndicalist deviation, and
that is incompatible with communism and the Party
Programme If you add: “mandatory but not for the
Party” you are giving the non-Party workers a false sense of
having some increase in their rights, whereas in fact there will
be no change at all. The longer Comrade Bukharin persists in his
deviation from communism—a deviation that is wrong
theoretically and deceptive politically—the more deplorable
will be the fruits of his obstinacy. You cannot maintain an
untenable proposition. The Party does not object to the extension
of the rights of the non-Party workers in general, but a little
reflection will show what can and what cannot be done in this
respect.

In the discussion by the Communist group of the Second
All-Russia Miners’ Congress, Shlyapnikov’s platform
was defeated despite the backing it got from Comrade Kiselyov, who
commands special prestige in that union: our platform won 137
votes, Shlyapnikov’s, 62, and Trotsky’s, 8. The
syndicalist malaise must and will be cured.

In this one month, Petrograd, Moscow and a number of provincial
towns have shown that the Party responded to the discussion and
has rejected Comrade Trotsky’s wrong line by an overwhelming
majority. While there may have been some vacillation “at the
top” and “in the provinces”, in the committees
and in the offices, the rank-and-file membership—the mass of
Party workers—came out solidly against this wrong line.

Comrade Kamenev informed me of Comrade Trotsky’s
announcement, during the discussion in the Zamoskvorechye District
of Moscow on January 23, that he was withdrawing his platform and
joining up with the Bukharin group on a new
platform. Unfortunately, I heard nothing of this from Comrade
Trotsky either on January 23 or 24, when he spoke against me in
the Communist group of the Miners’ Congress. I don’t
know whether this is due to another change in Comrade
Trotsky’s platform and intentions, or to some other
reason. In any case, his January 23 announcement shows that the
Party, without so much as mustering all its forces, and with only
Petrograd, Moscow and a minority of the provincial towns going on
record, has corrected Comrade Trotsky’s mistake promptly and
with determination.

The Party’s enemies had rejoiced too soon. They have not
been able—and will never be able—to take advantage of
some of the inevitable disagreements within the Party to inflict
harm on it and on the dictatorship of the proletariat in
Russia.

January 25, 1921

Endnotes

[1]
Lenin began writing the pamphlet on January 21 or 22, 1921, in
Gorki where he was taking a rest. Upon his return to Moscow on
January 22, he handed the greater part of the pamphlet to his
secretary for typing. He finished the work on January 25 and had
it sent to the printer’s. Late on January 26, C.C. members
who were going to attend local discussions of the trade
unions’ role and tasks were given copies of the printed
pamphlet, while the rest of the copies were ready on January
27.

[2]Petrogradskaya Pravda (Petrograd Truth
)—a daily published from April 2, 1918, as the organ of
the Bolshevik Central and Petrograd Party Committees. Since
January 1924, it has been appearing as Leningradskaya
Pravda.

[3]
V. I. Zoff’s circular of May 3, 1920, was published in the
Bulleten Mariinskogo Oblastnogo Upravlenia Vodnogo
Transporta (Bulletin of the Mariinsky Regional Water
Transport Administration ) No. 5, 1920. It ran: “A
great change is about to occur in the life of water transport:
primitive methods, committee treadmill, haphazard work and anarchy
are on the way out. Water transport is becoming a state
enterprise, headed by political commissars with appropriate
powers. Committees, trade unions and elected delegates will no
longer have the power to interfere in technical and administrative
matters.”

[3b] By the way, it would be a good thing, first,
if the current edition of Plekhanov’s works contained a
special volume or volumes of all his philosophical articles, with
detailed indexes, etc., to be included in a series of standard
textbooks on communism; secondly I think the workers’ state
must demand that professors of philosophy should have a knowledge
of Plekhanov’s exposition of Marxist philosophy and ability
to impart it to their students. But all that is a digression from
“propaganda” to
“administration”—Lenin.

[3c]Incidentally, here again Trotsky makes a
mistake. He thinks that an industrial union is designed to control
industry. That is wrong. When you say that a union is an
industrial one you mean that it admits to membership workers in
one industry, which is inevitable at the present level of
technology and culture (in Russia and
elsewhere).—Lenin.

The order was an example of administration by
injunction and bureaucratic practices, which Tsektran’s
leadership was introducing, and was evidence of their
misunderstanding of the trade unions’ role in getting
transport back on its feet. The trade unions were equated with
outdated army committees, and barred by order from taking part in
improving water transport operations.

[4]
On December 24, 1920, in what used to be the Zimin theatre,
Trotsky gave a report on the trade unions tasks in production at a
joint meeting of trade union activists and delegates to the Eighth
All-Russia Congress of Soviets, called by the Central Committee of
the Joint Union of Rail and Water Transport Workers. It started
the open Party discussion on the trade unions.